Snogwarts: Creature Comforts
by SNOGWARTS
Summary: To him, she was 'my dear', 'my darling', and sometimes 'goddess'. He always spoke in endearments. Now she is headmistress. Anonymous. Androgynous. Somewhat AU MMAD RLSB.


Creature Comforts  
by VerbalKlepto

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Pairing: Remus Lupin/Minerva McGonagall (assigned by Goldfish945)  
Disclaimer: I'm a die-hard MMAD shipper. Goldfish and Prongsie are die-hard RLSB shippers. This is the byproduct.

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Minerva McGonagall has dealt with a lot of death in her life. Misfortune has been her past's most faithful companion, and she has attended more funerals than weddings. Since she signed on to help _him_ with his very many, dangerous wars, her happiness has been capitulated to the greater good.

Sometimes Minerva wishes that she were as benevolent as he—Albus, with his flowing white hair and ready smile and sparkling eyes—but she knows that where he always drew in light, she is more suited to the shadows. The green-eyed raven on his shoulder, providing solace in the dark corners where nobody can see.

Now that he's dead, she wishes that he had been a little more like her rather than the other way around. She wishes that he had been a little more selfish. Often they'd sit, nighttimes, by the fire, sipping tea and chatting about nothing, his arm around her and his lips on her hair; she would tell him that his plans were too grand, too dependent upon other people to actually come to fruition. Once, she told him as much, and he quietly stated that his plans simply had to work. That there was no alternative.

For all of his annoyingly noble foibles, that she loved him with every fiber of her being is not in question. Her heart feels as though it has shriveled in her chest, and her hands start to tremble whenever his name is mentioned. One evening, she tried to summon the courage to address _his_ portrait where it hangs over _his_ desk, but she ended up fleeing the room entirely, knowing that even in death, his eyes were on her retreating back, his brow creased in a familiar line of concern.

That she grieves, too, is not something open to interpretation. She doesn't let her grief cripple her. She continues to work, taking on _his_ title and orchestrating _his_ job. She speaks to her coworkers. She writes to friends. But she is a little hollower, and she knows it. Alone in _his_ office, clutching _his_ teacup, sitting on _his_ couch, she sometimes thinks that she may be swallowed by that gnawing black hole in her chest.

What she does question is that she must mourn in secret. That is what plagues her.

A week after his death, an owl from Tokyo arrives, clutching a letter addressed to Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore. She nearly wretches at the sight of it with the sudden rush of emotion that rocks her like a buoy on a stormy sea. She collapses onto her knees, squeezing her eyes shut, and holding the envelope to her chest. Poppy appears an hour later.

"Minerva?" She asks, rushing to the fallen headmistress's side. "Are you all right?"

"Fine." She sniffs, her voice sharp as she banishes the envelope with a bit of wandless magic. She wipes her eyes on the back of her hand as she makes to stand. Poppy catches her when her knees nearly give out. "Peeves and his tricks." She explains weakly, and Poppy laughs it off with her.

Then:

"Is something wrong, lass?"

"Fine, Alastor. Thank you."

And:

"Are you losing weight, Min? Not sick I hope. Not that I'm asserting that you look ill, my good woman—my good _headmistress_, forgive me—because you look as radiant as though you were a girl barely in her fifties—"

"I'm perfectly fine, Horace, thank you for your concern."

Conversations begin to blur together. She knows the answer before the question is even asked.

"How was your break, Minerva? Usually spend it with ol' Albus at that symposium, don't ya? Pity, that… miss the old codger…"

"My break was fine, Ponoma. How was yours?"

"Are you okay, Professor?"

"Fine, Miss Granger…"

"Minerva—?"

"—Professor…"

"…Headmistress—"

That is who she becomes. To _him_, she was 'my dear', 'my darling', and sometimes 'goddess'. _He_ always spoke in endearments. Now she is headmistress. Anonymous. Androgynous. She wants to explain that her life has been turned upside down by his sudden absence, but no one knew how important he was to her, and she hardly has the ability to explain herself. To announce the nature of her relationship with the late Albus Dumbledore would either seem a lie—a desperate attempt to garner attention—or just pathetic, that she would pine over somebody who didn't even see fit to make their relationship publically known.

One day, the headmistress is sitting at _his_ desk and penning responses to the ministry about some inane ban on students' toads recently issued. A knock on her door causes her to look up for a beat.

"Enter." She calls laconically, adding _at your own risk_ in her head. She has become a figure of great fear and unease at Hogwarts since Dumbledore's death.

Remus Lupin steps in.

"Remus," she says, surprised, dropping her quill suddenly on her desk. "It has been an age."

He smiles thinly. "I've been away, doing a job Dumbledore asked of me—I got back yesterday and heard that he's—" Remus swallows. Minerva feels vaguely ill.

"Dead. Yes." She bends over and resumes writing.

"Minerva—"no on calls her that anymore "—how?"

"Severus. Do you not read the papers?"

"Yes," Remus murmurs, sitting down on the chair before Dumbledore's desk. "Forgive me, Minerva, my head is reeling. What—"

"Forgive _me_, Mr. Lupin, but I am unwilling to speak any further on the subject." He feels like a student again.

"My dear…" hedges Dumbledore from his gilt frame behind her.

"Not now." She snaps.

"But, Minerva, my dear, I do not _quite _see—"

"_SHUT UP!"_ She roars abruptly, wheeling on the portrait, eyes blazing. It is only a moment later that she remembers that Remus is also in the room. She turns around, instantly composed as primly as an ice sculpture. Her hands are clenched in front of her so tightly that her knuckles glow white. "I apologize for my outburst. I have many things on my mind, you understand, and more yet to do, so if you would just—"She gestures towards the door with one hand, smiling vaguely.

"Are you quite all right?"

"Fine, fine," she says, brushing off the question as she tucks her robes beneath her and sits back in the chair.

"You are clearly not fine, Professor. You just shouted at a portrait. And, if I may say, you look _dreadful_."

"I'm tired, Remus, that's all. There are many things he left unfinished…"

Remus squints at her, his golden eyes murky as he crosses his legs and leans forward, making clear his intention to stay on despite her obvious dismissal. "Who did?"

"What's that?"

"I don't think I've heard you say his name once. Everybody is Albus this and Dumbledore that—you've barely said a word on the matter and, other than Harry, no one knew Dumbledore better than you."

The bitter curl to her lips can't be stifled—does the world honestly think that Albus Dumbledore's closest companion was a teenage boy. Of course, Dumbledore was extremely fond of Harry, and Minerva knows it. Albus's concern for Potter's welfare comprised a great deal of their conversations. But for some reason, Minerva has noticed that people refuse to see Albus as a human, as a man, and instead see him as a symbol. In her thoughtfulness, she does not immediately answer.

"Minerva?"

"Oh, yes. Albus left a great many things out of order—"

"Organized chaos, my girl—"

"—so if that's all…?" Again, she waits for him to leave. But he doesn't. He just sits and stares. She shifts uncomfortably, but she's unwilling to force him out. He is a friend, after all.

"I know you pretty well. You don't seem yourself."

"Who do I seem like, then? Enlighten me."

Remus leans back contemplatively, covering his mouth with his hand and looking at the ground as he carefully considers something. She turns her eyes back to her letters and acts as though she doesn't care how close he is to prodding the open, festering wound she has done so well to hide. Minerva mentally lists all of the spells she could utilize to silence a portrait.

"You seem like me. Last year. After…"

"After what, Remus?" Minerva snaps, dropping the quill once more and tapping frenetically against the polished wood of _his_ desk. "Really, I don't have _all_ day."

"After Sirius died."

Minerva finally looks up at him, and instantly feels horrible. The expression on his face mirrors the gnawing horror she feels inside—his lips are drawn in a tight line, his eyes are closed windows, and he suddenly seems very pale.

"I didn't talk to anybody about it, and it made it far worse in the long run."

"It's not quite the same thing, Remus, but thank you for the sentiment."

"Are you sure? I think our situations are very much alike."

"How so?"

"This is speculation," Remus says, leaning forward, and she has to smile a little, thinking of a studious sixth year Lupin and his endless questions and astute observations, "but I think that you and Albus were closer than anybody knew."

She makes a noise that is neither an affirmation nor denial. She doesn't know what to do. She wants to tell somebody so very badly that she could scream—but at the same time, she wonders if it would not be wrong to go against _his_ wishes after his death.

"That would not be dissimilar from my situation. No one knows the depth of the relationship Sirius and I had." He pauses, smiling slightly. "Except for you. So," he continues, approaching the desk and placing his hands on the surface. He leans over the wooden structure and smiles encouragingly. "Spill."

"I don't think that it is appropriate."

"I don't think it's appropriate for the headmistress to rot away in her office while her friends twiddle their thumbs."

She makes that noise again, that one that doesn't belong to Minerva McGonagall; it's a weak, noncommittal sound lodged in the constricted throat of the headmistress and her cold green eyes.

She knows that this is the point in the conversation where Albus would fix her with his bright, keen eyes, and remind her that she had once marched into his classroom as a third year and demanded that he improve her grade lest she hex him so thoroughly he'd be forced to do it. He'd bring forth memories of all those times people had, upon her appointment of Transfiguration Professor, made clandestine comments as to her relationship with Albus himself -- she had been hired rather young, and everybody knew that no student was more admired by Dumbledore than Minerva -- and she had responded with something so sharp and biting that within a month nobody doubted her ability, if not only out of fear.

"I don't want to talk about this, Mr. Lupin." _Minerva McGonagall, quailing before a student?_

"Then I'll talk." He said, running a hand through his sandy hair. His amber eyes were hard as he leaned back and began to pace again. She idly hoped that Severus had given him enough of his potion before the catastrophe. "Sirius and I were in love, Professor. I'm telling you because I know that I can trust you. But we told nobody else. We didn't know how our friends would react and we didn't want to test them. It was easier if we were just friends, and so sometimes we even acted that way by ourselves. I think, though, that I fell in love with him when I was fifteen."

"That is a long time." Minerva paused. Remus stared at her patiently until she cleared her throat and spoke once more. "Not so long, though." Her face stiffens once more; she will give up no more. Not yet.

"I didn't know what to do at first. Do you know how baffling that is? To be best friends with somebody one day, and then to wake up the next, look into their eyes, and realize that you _love_ them?"

"Yes."

He waits. No more comes. "That was hard. Knowing that my feelings had changed and not knowing whether his had or not. But the hardest was wondering if something was wrong with me. I mean, he was a bloke, after all. We had talked about girls all the time. To realize that my first love didn't wear dresses was so bewildering... Falling for my best friend was hard. Falling for someone who was socially off-limits was harder."

"Albus..." Her voice cracks and she pauses. Remus folds his hands neatly behind him and turns to look closely at her, his head tilted slightly to the side like a curious puppy. "Albus was my Transfiguration Professor for all seven years of my tenure at Hogwarts. Nothing happened, of course, whilst I was in school. By my sixth year, however, I knew that my feelings for him were not entirely platonic. He was almost fifty years my senior. He was my best friend, my only intellectual equal, and my sole confidante. I did not want to risk ruining the relationship we had. It was everything to me. At the same time, I wanted him to know sorely, and I was almost certain he felt the same -- but romance between my Professor and I was taboo. Terribly risky. There was too much at stake for me to just blurt it out so childishly."

"I understand." Remus swallowed. "It took me years to tell him. We were out of Hogwarts by the time I got up the courage to broach the subject. I kissed him. He was so shocked he almost passed out." Remus shrugged. Details were to be spare when speaking with his former Professor. "But obviously things worked out."

"Albus and I batted around the bush for a decade. We were working late into the night on a Transfiguration thesis one evening... I was... oh, not even thirty," here she smiled nostalgically, her eyes rolling towards the ceiling. Remus couldn't help but smile. "We fell asleep, lying on a wooden work table. I decided that I should never like to know the feeling of another wizard's arms around me ever again. Interestingly, Remus, I cannot remember the exact moment when I confessed my feelings to him, nor do I remember his reaction, naturally. I just know that I..." She swallows. The noise that doesn't belong to her echoes in the quiet once more. "I loved him. Gods, Remus, I loved him more than I can do justice in words. That he is not here makes my every step feel like lead -- sometimes it is so wretched that I can hardly breathe." She cries, now, silently, tears rolling down her cheeks. Remus falls silent, his mouth open slightly as he realizes the magnitude of what Minerva has been holding in.

On one hand, he can sympathize completely. Sirius died, and Remus had to act as a friend in mourning instead of a heartbroken lover. Remus knew exactly what she was going through. On the other hand, Remus and Sirius had been together, on-and-off again for a mite less than three decades, and Sirius's death had thrown his world so thoroughly out of whack that he had been borderline nonfunctional for a good chunk of time. Minerva and Albus, it seemed, had been together completely for -- for a _century_. He could not fathom the rift Dumbledore's death had left in her life.

He moves towards her and places a hand on her shoulder, and she covers her eyes with her hand, though she can't hide the shake of her shoulders. Remus draws her into an embrace, pressing his lips impulsively against her hair as she cries into his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Minerva." He strokes her back and kneels on the ground before the headmaster's chair, and Minerva eventually slips from her seat and onto the ground before him. He realizes how thin she has become as he folds her tightly against his chest, tracing indefinable runes against her trembling back.

Eventually, she composes herself. The only sound that echoes in the room is the sound of Dumbledore's snoring. Pulling back, Minerva wipes the tear-stains from beneath her eyes and offers a dim smile.

"I am sorry as well, Remus, for not having seen your loss."

He smiles back, and she kisses his cheek. Then his other cheek. He inhales shakily -- the emotions he extracted from her rock-hard facade were not easily done, and in the process he had been forced to unearth feelings of immense grief that he had long since put behind him. Remus kisses her cheek, and then the corner of her lips. She doesn't pull away.

"Minerva -- I-I think I should go." He whispers against her ear, placing a soft kiss onto the lily-white skin of her neck.

That hated noise rips from her throat.

"I don't..." he trails off, and then starts again."I can't offer you this kind of comfort." His words come simultaneous to the stretch of her arms around his neck, and the last few syllables are lost in the press of his mouth to hers, a fast, chaste motion that, even in its innocence, contradicts his words.

"This won't happen again."

"No."

"Not a word, ever. Not to a soul."

"Okay."

"But..."

"It's necessary..."

They need this. They need some kind of closure; they need to be enveloped in the arms, to be wholly surrounded by somebody who inexorably, inexplicably understands every facet of the hurt that exists beneath the polished surfaces and carefully cultivated facades. She moves to kiss him then, and within moments there's a charm on the door to keep the room locked and quiet, and the two grieving friends are a tangle of limbs and groping hands, plying mouths and cozening embraces beneath the snoring portrait of Albus Dumbledore and the dark curtain that billows like an echo in the distant window.


End file.
